ResearchCurrent ProjectsThe Central and Schist belts of the Alatna River
Emelie Axelsson (Post-doctoral researcher)
The Arctic Alaska-Chukotka microcontinent restores to the Canadian margin. Traces of the Caledonian and Timanian orogens may occur in Arctic Alaska).
The Alatna River represents our more central river and it cuts N-S across the topographically highest part of the Central Brooks Range. Its headwaters are located in unmetamorphosed rocks of the Endicott Mountains allochthon (yellow) and it then flows across the Central Belt (brown) and the Schist Belt (pink) that comprise thick sections of polydeformed graphitic and calcareous schists, marbles and metavolcanic rocks of uncertain age and relationship to one another. These mostly sedimentary rocks constituted the margin of Arctic Alaska during the middle Paleozoic but due to a lack of fossils their age and paleogeography remain poorly understood. This location, located between the eastern Brooks Range and the Seward Peninsula to the west, is critical for tracking the transition of rocks directly linked to Early Paleozoic Laurentia and those that have links to Baltica, e.g.- Caledonian affinities.
See www.AAEO.geo.su.se for more information.